Article

How To PC Game From The Comfort Of Your Couch | Gizmodo

My Comments

An Alienware gaming laptop that bridges performance and portability

Gaming on the big-screen TV isn’t just restricted to the likes of the XBox One or the PlayStation 4 consoles. You can engage in these games using your PC especially if you are using a laptop or dare to bring the tower-style gaming rig in to your lounge area. This is more so as the regular computer platforms i.e. Windows, OS X (Macintosh) and Linux still maintain a strong level of open-frame software deployment and become more the areas to try out gaming ideas.

This is brought on by the increase in the number of portable computers that have performance-computing chops whether in the form of mobile workstations or gaming laptops is making this kind of gaming more real. The manufacturers see this as a valuable niche for people who value performance and portability for work or play.

Dell Precision M2800 – a mobile workstation that also bridges performance and portability

This will apply to those of you who are at home or at a friend’s house because you could bring your gaming computer in to the living room or games room and play that game on the big screen from the comfort of your couch. Those of you who are staying at a college dorm (university residence hall) or similar location can use the big-screen TV in the common lounge area for playing that epic game on your gaming laptop.

What do you need?

TV and sound system

The TV or home-theatre system would need to have a spare HDMI connection for you to plug in another video peripheral.

Here, you are relying on HDMI as your audio and video connection and the equipment must be able to play the sound from an HDMI connection rather than just be a switcher. Recently-made home-theatre receivers will most likely be able to satisfy this requirement but beware of lower-end equipment that can’t achieve this goal.

One of the big-screen TVs that is worth playing games on

If you are buying a newer large-screen TV and you expect a regular computer to be connected to it, you should look for sets that have a high refresh rate like what would be expected for most well-bred monitors. As well, if your gaming setup is of a temporary nature, I would recommend that the equipment concerned has an HDMI connector on the front panel for a home-theatre receiver or similar device or on the side edge of a TV so that it is easily accessible without you needing to shift the equipment out or grope around the back whenever you want to play games.

In the case of an HDMI connection on the side of a TV, a short HDMI extension cord can come in handy if you find the side connections difficult to gain access to.

Your computer

HDMI connection on a laptop

The HomePlug powerline adaptor – a no-new-wires network with gaming chops

The computer should have HDMI as a video output option and be capable of directing the sound through that output. This is to achieve the goal of one cable between the computer and the TV or home-theatre receiver rather than worrying about many cables, with this cable carrying a digital audio signal along with the high-resolution video signal.

When you set up the sound, make sure that you know what your equipment can handle at best. If you use a home-theatre system, make sure that you set the audio output for Dolby Digital 5.1 bitstream or a similar codec that your equipment handles so you can take advantage of games that implement surround sound.

As well, it may be worth paying attention to an article that I wrote about multiple sound devices in Windows. In this case, you have to make sure that the sound device you are using for your game is the “display audio” or “HDMI audio” device associated with the graphics infrastructure you are using. Here, it’s about preparing and passing the sound through the HDMI connection to the TV’s speakers or the home-theatre receiver in a manner these devices can handle.

Control devices

Games that require frequent interactive activity would benefit form a console-type controller if you are leaning back on the couch. There are some wireless controllers out there but you can use an XBox 360 or XBox One controller that works with Windows courtesy of an adaptor that is sold for “pennies worth” by Microsoft.

For that matter, XBox One controllers are now able to work directly with your Windows-based computer via USB and the newest XBox One wireless controllers including the XBox Adaptive Controller can work via Bluetooth. This means you don’t need to buy a Microsoft adaptor to link your controller to your computer as explained in this article about achieving this setup.

These Bluetooth keyboards also earn their keep on the couch when gaming in the lounge

If you are needing to use a keyboard or mouse, it may be preferable to use wireless peripherals so you avoid cable clutter. Personally I would prefer to use Bluetooth equipment because you only need to use one transceiver dongle across them all and if the computer has integrated Bluetooth, you don’t need to worry about any of these transceiver devices. Sometimes a wireless keyboard or mouse pitched at tablet use can work as a wireless keyboard for gaming use.

Network

It is preferable to have an Ethernet socket in the lounge area but this may not be a reality. For your home or a friend’s, you may find that setting up a HomePlug AV500 powerline-network segment may work well in these circumstances.

Some college dorms and similar places may have an Ethernet socket connected to the premises’ network and Internet service not far from the common lounge area  HomePlug AV500 or HomePlug AV2 may work well in using a no-new-wires setup to bring the connection closer. In some cases, this connection may be locked down for specific devices and uses and it doesn’t hurt asking the staff about whether the connection is a “general-use” connection or can be set up as such.

At a pinch, you would need to use Wi-Fi wireless and make sure you have a reliable Wi-Fi connection at your computer. Wi-Fi networks that use Web-based login can be tricky to use and may require you to keep the “login successful” Web page minimised while you play that online game.This is best done with a Web browser that doesn’t take up much memory space.

Similarly, if you are playing against multiple computers across a public network, it may be difficult to discover the opponents’ computers because these networks are most likely set up to provide client isolation.

Setup

There are some things you will need to be sure of when you are setting up for gaming in the living room or other lounge area.

One would be to use a rug to cover long cables that travel between the computer and the TV or home theatre so as to avoid the situation of people tripping over the cables. This is important for situations where the area between the couch and the TV equipment is part of a thoroughfare.

A tray-table or bed desk is also a good place to position your gaming laptop or to use as a mouse mat. On the other hand, you may want to use the coffee table for that same purpose. This is to assure stability. Even those “Stable Table” trays with integrated cushions can come in handy as a mouse mat.

As for online game managers, Steam is the only such platform that provides a “big-screen” mode courtesy of their “Big Picture” mode. This will allow you to manage it while viewing the display from a distance. But when you are actually playing the game, this may not be a problem. It is due to a default approach by many games using the whole of the screen as their display canvas.

Conclusion

Once you know that you can game on with the big-screen TV and your gaming rig or laptop computer, you could be able to add that bit extra to your solo or group gaming experience.

Update:

This article will undergo continual revision as knowledge of newer technologies that can affect regular-computing gaming on the big-screen TV comes about.

12 September 2019 – Identified the “display audio” sound device that is used by your computer’s graphics infrastructure for passing your game’s soundtrack via the HDMI port.

9 September 2020 – Newer knowledge about connecting XBox One controllers to your Windows 10 computer,

14 September 2020 – Reference to a newer article about bed desks as a gift idea for laptop users

Taking control of local data-transfer functionality like AirDrop can help you avoid unwanted surprises

Article

Cyberflasher Airdrops rude images to victim’s iPhone | Naked Security (Sophos)

My Comments

A problem that has started to surface for Apple iOS users is the ability for someone to send gross images to strangers courtesy of the AirDrop feature that newer iterations of this platform have. Situations where this typically happened were when the offender and victim were on public transport or in public areas.

This feature makes it easy to share photos between iOS and MacOS X devices in a local area using Bluetooth and Wi-FI technologies and provides a thumbnail image of incoming photos rather than a dialog box asking if you want to receive the image.

This was feasible with Android and other open-frame mobile operating systems courtesy of Bluetooth Object Push Profile but these platforms. especially Android, hardened themselves against this by making your phone undiscoverable by default and providing a narrow time limit for having your phone discoverable by Bluetooth devices. As well, these platforms required your permission to start receiving the file and you didn’t see one bit of that file until you gave the go-ahead.

Android and Windows improved on this using a passcode that you and your correspondent exchange before a file is transferred and the NFC functionality that is part of recent Android versions requires you to physically touch the backs of the phones as part of instigating the data transfer.

The same situation may also crop up with Wi-Fi Aware as it implements Bluetooth local discovery for ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks created by mobile devices and will require users to be able to take control of what notifications and files they receive on their devices if this technology is for transferring files.

Protecting yourself

A good practice to observe is to turn off the AirDrop feature unless you make regular use of it. Or, at least, set AirDrop’s discoverability settings to “Off” or “Contacts Only” rather than “Everyone” so that every man and his dog can’t discover your phone. You would turn this function on if you are expecting a photo from someone not yet in your Contacts List.

In some situations, you may have to disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth unless you are actually using these features such as linking to a hotspot or using a Bluetooth headset.

You may find that changing your device’s identity to your initials or something innocuous rather than your first name may work wonders in these situations.

I would also prefer that any local data transfer or similar activity between users takes place in a manner where each participant can see each other. This may be at the same table in a café, restaurant or library, the same seating cluster in a lounge area, the same row of seats in a public-transport vehicle or a similar area of close proximity. As well, such activity should be preceded by relevant conversation.

What must be preserved

If a setup allows for local data transfer between computer devices using a wireless medium, there must be a way of allowing the users to confirm their intent to transfer the data between each other. This means that the sender and receiver know whom the data is coming from and to and must occur before a single bit of the actual data changes hands.

This may be through the sender exchanging a simple passcode to the receiver or requiring the devices to physically be near each other at the start of the data transmission. The latter solution may be in the form of NFC where the users touch the backs of their devices together, or a QR code shown on the sending device’s screen that the receiving device has to scan before transmission takes place.

If a user wants to simplify this process, they could create a “trusted recipients” list which can be their Contacts list or a separately-created list. Personally, I would use all of the “friends” in a social network as this list because that tends to encompass too many people and an account can too easily be compromised.

The same thing must also apply to social networks, online gaming and similar services where one user may want to enrol another user in to their personal lists. This is more important if any of these services facilitate the transfer of files between users or support any form of instant messaging.

Article

Wow, Samsung’s New 16 Terabyte SSD Is the World’s Largest Hard Drive | Gizmodo

My Comments

Samsung has released a solid-state storage device with the world’s largest capacity for a fixed-storage device.

This is in the form of a 2.5” 16Tb solid-state drive that is based around 256Gb NAND flash-memory dies rather than the usual 128Gb dies. At the moment, this drive, which has an asking price of approximately US$5000 to US$7000 will end up in enterprise and datacenter applications.

But it shows what a high-capacity solid-state drive in the order of 16Tb could be about. For example, it could be feasible for manufacturers to offer desktop and laptop computers with a solid-state drive that excels on performance, power consumption / battery runtime and storage capacity. It would also appeal to a situation where we will end up keeping a lot of data such as a 4K UHDTV movie collection or RAW “digital-negative” image files.

Other application classes I see this benefiting include digital cameras, camcorders and audio recorders where the goal is to see a compact device that can be used to acquire a lot of material for a long time without running out of battery power.

An Internet-Of-Things sensor that would require regular software updates to be secure

Article

Content security vendors need to prevent babycam hacking nightmares | VideoNet

My Comments

A problem that will get worse in this day and age is weak security affecting home automation and security. This is based around easy-to-misconfigure hardware pitched at home users on a “set it and forget it” basis. It has led to consumer IP-based cameras being hacked and their content being thrown to undesirable Websites.

This is driven by a common mindset associated with devices sold to consumers where the goal is to buy it. install it and use it without requiring the consumer to worry about it more.

The Pay-TV ecosystem invests in and uses a high-security path to protect the expensive content such as the Hollywood blockbusters or the big-league sports that it provides to its subscribers. This is always evolved and updated to counteract new threats to this ecosystem and to handle new applications. They also used the “end-to-end” approach including supplying hardware to consumers and updating the software in this hardware automatically and without the consumer having to do anything extra.

Similarly, regular-computer setups have been made secure with Microsoft and Apple delivering security updates to Windows and MacOS X on a regular basis as threats come about. This is because of these systems having a heritage of being used in the business environment for a long time.

The article raised the concept of companies who provide home monitoring and allied services offering a turnkey installation and configuration service to their customers as a premium service or simply alerting customers to misconfigured hardware and hacking attempts if customers prefer to install their own hardware. They could use the Pay-TV technology to secure the content path between the cameras and the Web dashboards or mobile apps that the customers use.

“Blind updating”

AVM FRITZ!Box – self-updating firmware = secure network infrastructure

What I would like to see more is the ability to patch network-infrastructure hardware in a similar manner to what is done with pay-TV, regular-computer operating systems and some cloud-hosted services. This is where security updates and patches are delivered and installed automatically to these devices. In some cases, it may be preferable to provide an interactive update process for major software versions that add or change a device’s functionality.

A good step in the right direction was AVM with their Fritz!Box routers where they introduced the concept of automatic software updating to this class of device when they released new firmware for the Fritz!Box 7490.

These processes will have to require manufacturers to instigate software authentication and verification workflows and have their devices verify software updates before deploying them. This is to prevent the deployment of malware to these devices.

Article

Someone could be setting the cat amongst the pigeons in the Australian market

Singaporean Internet startup MyRepublic to launch in Australia | Mashable

How Telstra threat MyRepublic plans to win the NBN race in Australia | Fairfax (Sydney Morning Herald)

My Comments

What needs to happen with the status quo when it comes to Internet service quality and pricing is that a new competitor who offers better value for money shows up in the marketplace.

This has happened in France with Free.fr when they offered some really low prices for their telephony and Internet service and has whipped up a highly-competitive Internet service market where Internet and triple-play services are so keenly priced. In the USA, Google rolled out their Google Fiber service to cities like Kansas City, Provo and Austin with rock-bottom prices for Gigabit Internet service. This has stirred up established Baby Bells and cable companies in the area to lift their game when it came to Internet service quality and prices. In the UK, Gigaclear have cut in to BT’s established practices by offering to rural communities FTTH broadband services which have the same upload and download speeds at prices most home and small-business users can afford.

Now a new Singapore telco has come on the scene in the Asia-Pacific region to do expressly that. MyRepublic is intending to join the Australian Internet-service market by offering an all-you-can-eat 100Mbps service for AUD$80-90 per month in the main capital cities. They intend to link in to the NBN infrastructure to provide this service but are critical of the way NBN was changed towards a fibre-copper technology mix.

MyRepublic had reached other markets like New Zealand where they offered an all-you-can-eat 100Mbps service for NZ$79.99 over a 24-month contract and were focusing on offering a pure-play service that is independent of traditional telcos and cable-TV companies who are dependent on their other services.

Existing telcos, especially Telstra, are crying foul because they think that MyRepublic doesn’t have the infrastructure ready to provide Internet service of the same standard that they want to provide. What I see of this is that it shows that established providers will try to discredit competitive influence in order to make sure that the competitors can’t survive.

A question that may be worth raising is whether MyRepublic would have to capitulate towards offering multiple-play services with VoIP telephony and IP-based pay-TV especially in markets where multiple-play is the order of the day. It will also include whether these services will be keenly priced and offer increased value such as included calls or TV channels.

Hi everyone!

HomeNetworking01.info is undergoing a few improvements. One of these is to have a new look that works well for mobile, tablet and regular (desktop and laptop) computers so you can still enjoy reading the good articles on whatever device you are using.

Soon, those of you who follow this website by email or RSS (Webfeed) methods will be moved towards the FeedBlitz system. This will be in order to benefit from better feed targeting and also newer email subscribers will benefit from an improved onboarding experience where you can catch up with previous featured articles.

It will take some time to iron out the bugs here and there but you will benefit when things become smoother.

With regards

Simon Mackay

Article

Epson EcoTank ET-L355 printer

Epson: Cheap printers, expensive ink? Let’s turn that upside down | The Register

From the horse’s mouth

Epson UK

Product Page

Press Release

Epson USA

Product Page

My Comments

Epson is running a lineup of inkjet printers that break the rule of how inkjet printers are sold. Typically these printers are sold at a cheap price with the cost made up in how much you pay for the consumables.

But this lineup of piezo inkjet printers is sold at a premium and comes with 2 years worth of ink along with high-capacity ink tanks. The desktop printers use a box on the side for housing the ink tanks and use a similar pipe system to recent HP OfficeJet, Brother and other Epson printers. It is also driven by Epson’s experience in industrial inkjet printing presses and wide-format printers.

Epson EcoTank ET-L555 office printer

Models already available in the UK sell at £299.99 including VAT for the premium ET-L555 office model that has an automatic document feeder and £219.99 for the home model without the automatic document feeder. The ET-2500 will go for US$379 while the ET-4550 which has all the features will go for US$499 in the US.

Personally, I would like to see Epson offer the EcoTank or SuperTank high-capacity printing as a user-installable option for some regular office inkjet printers so that those of us who want to push these printers as short-run printing presses can do so.

Similarly, using the EcoTank system along with quality-optimised printing for promotional material could raise the concept of having that desktop printer earn its keep as an organisational short-run printing press. Oh yeah, you should know where to obtain replacement ink for these printers and refill their ink tanks promptly to avoid airlocks.